Maintenance Incidents
Maintenance incidents can be scheduled to help your team prepare for the expected service interruptions that often occur during planned system updates and migrations.
They can be found in the Rootly web app under the “Maintenance” tab in Incidents.
Unlike regular incidents, a Slack channel isn’t generated automatically. Create one by selecting the Slack icon under the incident title.
After the maintenance incident has been created, share it on your Status Pages.
It’s not currently possible to mute new alerts during the maintenance incident.
Schedule a Maintenance Incident from the web app
Step 1
Go to Incidents > Maintenance and click Schedule Maintenance in the top-right corner.
Step 2
Fill in the maintenance incident form. Scheduled for and Scheduled until timestamps are required.
Most of the fields in the maintenance incident form can be customized and new fields can be added.
The default maintenance incident form includes:
| Field | Content |
|---|---|
| Title | Title of the incident. This will be used to create the channel name along with today’s date. |
| Summary | A summary of the incident. |
| Severity | Defaults: Severity level from SEV3 to SEV0. |
| Type | The type of incident. Defaults: Cloud, Security, Customer facing, Default. |
| Services | The service or services impacted. |
The maintenance incident form can be customized in Configuration > Forms & Fields > New Maintenance Incident.
Step 3
Click Create Incident to save.
Schedule a Maintenance Incident from Slack
Step 1
Enter the Slack command /rootly maintenance. Press enter or click the paper plane icon to run the command and open the _maintenance incident _form.
Step 2
Fill in the maintenance incident form. Scheduled for and Scheduled until dates and times are required.
Most of the fields in the maintenance incident form can be customized and new fields can be added.
The default maintenance incident form includes:
| Field | Content |
|---|---|
| Title | Title of the incident. This will be used to create the channel name along with today’s date. |
| Summary | A summary of the incident. |
| Severity | Defaults: Severity level from SEV3 to SEV0. |
| Type | The type of incident. Defaults: Cloud, Security, Customer facing, Default. |
| Services | The service or services impacted. |
The maintenance incident form can be customized in Configuration > Forms & Fields > New Maintenance Incident.
Step 3
Click Schedule to save.
The maintenance incident is now available in the Rootly web app. To manage the incident in Slack, select View in Rootly, then click the Slack icon under the incident title.
Update a maintenance incident
Change the status
Maintenance incidents can have the following statuses:
- Scheduled
- In Progress
- Completed
Change the status by clicking Incident Status in the top-right corner.
Update details
Click Edit in the top-right corner to update the incident.
Default fields include:
| Field | Content |
|---|---|
| Scheduled start and end time | The planned time for the maintenance to take place. |
| Title | The title of the maintenance incident. This will only be visible in the Rootly web app or the incident Slack channel (if applicable). |
| Severity | Defaults: Severity level from SEV3 to SEV0. |
| Type | The type of incident. Defaults: Cloud, Security, Customer facing, Default. |
| Services | The service or services impacted. |
| Environments | The environment the incident will impact. E.g. Dev or Production. |
| Functionalities | Specific functionalities impacted. E.g. Checkout or Search. |
| Teams | The relevant teams involved in this maintenance incident. |
The form can be edited from Configuration > Forms & Fields > Update Maintenance Incident.
Assign Roles
Pre-assign roles to this maintenance incident by selecting “Assign Roles” under the incident title.
Create a Slack channel
Select the Slack icon under the incident title to create a Slack channel for this maintenance incident.
Converting a maintenance incident
Sometimes, unexpected complexity might occur during your maintenance incident, and it requires a regular incident to be declared.
Rootly lets you convert an existing maintenance incident into a regular incident directly in Rootly Web, or via Slack.
Converting to a regular incident on web
While viewing your Maintenance Incident on web, select (…), thenConvert to incident .
Clicking on this button will trigger your Rootly Create Incident form, as well as a ‘Reason for conversion’ field for your commanders to fill out to give additional context for why the incident is being converted. The information provided in this field will be added to the incident’s timeline.
Converting to a regular incident on Slack
To convert your maintenance incident on Slack, in your maintenance incident’s Slack channel use the /rootly convert maintenance command.
This will trigger your Rootly Create Incident form, as well as a ‘Reason for conversion’ field for your commanders to fill out to give additional context for why the incident is being converted. The information provided in this field will be added to the incident’s timeline.
Once your maintenance incident is converted to a regular incident, all of your related automations and workflows will trigger much like they do when a new incident is created.